


Anyone Can Cook

by mydogwatson



Series: Postcard Tales: Interlude [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternative First Meeting, Eclairs, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Serial Killer, john is smitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 09:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: Alone and depressed in London, John Watson finds himself in a class called The Romance of French Pastry.





	Anyone Can Cook

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty fluffy for me, so I hope you think I pulled it off. Will mention that I had to go out and buy some eclairs when I finished writing it.
> 
> This is also the penultimate tale in this series. Hope to have the final one up in a few days.

John Watson hated arguing with petty bureaucrats, despite or maybe because of his extensive military experience with the species. But at least back in those days, his Captain Watson Voice would often triumph over the idiocy and if occasionally he did end up feeling a bit like a bully, he could live with that.

As a civilian, however, life was quite different and throwing his weight around never seemed to work as well. In person, he could blame this on the fact that a man with a cane and an intermittent tremor was not effectively terrifying, but he couldn’t use that excuse when the confrontation was over the telephone.

He took a deep breath and decided to pull out the Wounded Soldier card, although using that always made him feel a bit sick and a bit angry. “Look, sir,” he said, “I’m an injured vet living on a very limited income.” Which was true enough, although his recent locum work had helped fill to the gap left by his pension. “Honestly, I only registered for this because my girlfriend, well, my former girlfriend, actually, wanted us to go on the course. But she dumped…never mind that. Not important. The truth is, I have no interest in going on any cookery course at all. Especially not one called The Romance of French Pastry.”

The voice on the other end of the call seemed unmoved by his pathetic plight. Clearly not a Queen and Country fellow. “Well, Mr Watson, the terms were quite clear on the enrolment form. You are, of course, not obliged to turn up for the classes. However, your fee cannot be returned at this late date.”

“Actually, it’s Doctor Watson,” he muttered.

That seemed to end the conversation.

Quite predictably, it was a very unhappy and reluctant ex-soldier who turned up at the leisure centre [which was all the way out in bloody Islington] three days later. Reluctant, yes, but he had paid the bloody fee and so he was stubbornly determined to attend at least the first class, which bore the unpromising name The Magic of Eclairs. It was quite likely that he would be the only sad case on his own, since the course was pitched very much at couples wanting to cook together.

Sure enough, he stood alone at his cook station in the large room, as six apparently happy and no doubt very much in love couples giggled and helped one another to tie on their pink pinnies. He managed to get his own pinny in place, thank you very much. It was easier, after all, than getting suited up for surgery.

So there he stood, in splendid isolation, staring at a countertop that was home to a carefully arranged collection of tools. It was all just slightly intimidating, but he tried to pretend that it was an operating theatre trolly set up for him to begin an operation.  
Then at the very last moment, just as a rather plump but no less sexy for that French woman was calling the class to order, the door into the room crashed open and a man burst in, rather like a whirlwind. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, waving one hand towards the room at large, although John did not think that the apology sounded terribly sincere. 

Instead of sending the latecomer to the only other empty station which was at the opposite end of the room, Madame DuBlaine fluttered a bit and then decided that the two solitary attendees would be better off working together.

John was not especially convinced of that fact and the other man did not seem very pleased either. But John had been raised with manners, so he held out a hand. “John Watson,” he said.

“Hmmm…Iraq or Afghanistan?” was what he got in response.

“What?” John blinked at the tall, thin man in the perfectly tailored black suit and a purple shirt. His hair was a mess of dark curls and his cheekbones looked lethal.

Finally, with a smile that was just slightly more sincere than the apology, he shook John’s hand. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said crisply.

Before John could ask him again about his odd statement, the class began.

Quickly, John tried to hand Holmes one of the pink pinnies, but the tall man [quite rightfully in John’s truthful opinion] ignored him.

Apparently éclair making had three parts: a crispy golden shell of something called pate a choux, a rich pudding-like filling of vanilla pastry cream and a chocolate glace on top.

John didn’t even realise that he was actually making notes until he’d carefully written all of that information down on the pink pad of paper that had been waiting on the counter. Then he caught himself.

What the hell?

He definitely did not need to know all of that stuff, since he never intended making any French pastry once he was out of this bloody class. Really, he was extremely doubtful as to whether he would even turn up for next week’s class, fee or no fee. Did he really need to know anything about The Mystery of Macarons? He set the pen down rather more firmly than was necessary and only then did he realise that his cubicle mate was watching him with a faint smirk on his interesting [what the hell?] lips.

After a [too-long and entirely inappropriate] moment of staring at those lips, John just gave a shrug. Holmes stepped a bit closer in the already too small cubicle and spoke in a whisper. “Military habits are hard to break, I assume. Someone starts giving orders and you dutifully write them down.”

“How do you know about the military?” John replied.

Madame DuBlaine shot them an icy glare and they both shut up.

The pate a choux, she assured the class, was not as intimidating as it might sound to them, although John was sceptical of that claim. He only half-listened as she described the process of cooking flour and butter together and then beating eggs into the dough.

She went on for some time about whisking the eggs.

John glanced over at Holmes and saw with some indignation that he was now assiduously scribbling onto the pad of paper. John frowned at the blatant hypocrisy, but then Holmes pushed the pad towards him. He looked down at the recipe [or what he thought would be the recipe] and saw something quite different.

_The man two cubicles over? In the hideous yellow shirt?_

John lifted his head so that he could see the man Holmes was writing about.

At first glance at least, an unlikely candidate to be interested in a French pastry class, but then so was he and also Holmes, for that matter. The bloke was even taller than Holmes and twice as broad, but still had a certain air of sophistication, despite the yellow shirt which looked expensive. And which was also hideous. He was with a petite redhead, quite cute, actually and they seemed to be having a good time. Oddly, John expected to feel at least a twinge of regret or loss over his recently failed romance, but there was nothing but curiosity. What was going on with this fascinating stranger standing next to him?

He returned his attention to the words on the paper.

_He is a serial killer. I love those! Always something to look forward to! He is planning to kill that woman later tonight._

“What?” John said much too loudly.

Everyone in the room turned to look at him and after a moment Madame DuBlaine carefully repeated her instructions on the three-step process of making pate a choux. John thought he probably should have been more embarrassed than he was. He tilted his head closer and spoke softly. “Holmes, what the fuck?”

The idiot only smiled at him. “Sherlock, please,” he breathed back.

The class had moved on to the instructions for making the pastry cream, which Madame DuBlaine described as “the most decadent pudding you will ever eat.” Her seductive tone made the class laugh softly. Sherlock, meanwhile, took the pad again and scribbled some more, before pushing it back to John. 

_He signs up for classes with his victims and then kills them in an appropriate manner._

John looked up at Holmes, frowning.

“Appropriate in his eyes,” Sherlock said impatiently, tapping the page.

John read on.

_After the macramé class, the woman was strangled with a poorly-made plant hanger. The pottery class lead her to be drowned in a tub of slip. And the third---well, the class was on the identification of poisonous mushrooms._

John looked up and Sherlock just raised a brow meaningfully.

The instructions had now reached the process of straining and cooking the pastry cream.

It was John’s turn to write something.

_I am going to hell. All I can think about is how you would kill someone with an éclair._

Sherlock gave a choked-off giggle that had a slightly rusty and unused sound to it. Then he leaned over and wrote again.

_We are going to stop him._

Although John did not speak aloud, expression clearly said “We?”

_Could be dangerous._

Well, he could hardly let some poor innocent woman be killed, could he? Especially with a pate a choux. He was only vaguely aware of his shoulders straightening, as he readied himself for battle.

For some reason, Sherlock gave him another smile, this one much more genuine than the earlier ones had been.

A few minutes later the class was opened up to questions before the students were expected to actually start baking. Sherlock winked at John and made his move. “How easy would it be for someone to sneak an undetectable poison into the pastry cream?” he asked loudly.

Everyone in the room looked at him and, by extension, at John as well. For a terrible moment, John wondered if he might actually be trapped in this small cubicle with a madman. Then his gaze shifted towards the serial killer, who was certainly looking murderous, although not towards the woman, but towards Sherlock instead.

Unbidden, John’s feet slid him closer to Sherlock.

Madame DuBlaine was still trying to formulate an answer to Sherlock’s question, but apparently he was not quite finished yet.

“I mean, it would have to be something more subtle than a poisoned mushroom, right? Or possibly the murderer could drown his victim in the pudding?”

Yellow Shirt was edging slowly towards the door, while his date just looked bewildered. Then, still wearing his pink pinny, he bolted, shoving Madame DuBlaine aside as he went.

Sherlock immediately took off after him.

John just stood there for a moment.

“John!” Sherlock shouted as he ran out the door.

At that, John headed for the door as well, barely aware of his hand grabbing something from the tidy arrangement of baking equipment on the counter. “Call 999,” he yelled to Madame DuBlaine.

By the time he reached the pavement, he had nearly drawn even with Sherlock. Vaguely, he was bemused by the fact that his cane was still back in the cubicle. What that meant, however, was something to think about later, because at that moment Sherlock put on a sudden burst of speed and his ridiculously long legs took him around the corner and out of sight.

But a moment later, John rounded that same corner.

And froze.

“One move and his pretty neck won’t be so pretty anymore,” Yellow Shirt said in what seemed an unnecessarily menacing tone, given the sharp blade he was holding.

John wasted 2.3 seconds thinking that, yes, it actually was a pretty neck, and then cursing the fact that his [slightly illegal] gun was not tucked in his waistband, but instead was back in his horrid bedsit. But then, for the first time, he realised that what he had picked up back in the leisure centre was a heavy wooden rolling pin. Like the one his Gram had always used. [Although that fact, like noticing a pretty neck, was irrelevant to the circumstances.]

“Okay,” he said, holding up his free hand in a placating manner. [Best not to dwell on the fact that the last time John had tried this same thing he’d been trying to deal with a sixteen-year-old terrorist fighter. On that infamous occasion, he’d ended up with a bullet in his shoulder. Oddly, somehow, the risk felt more dire here.] “Let’s all stay calm, shall we?.”

Yellow Shirt did not loosen his grip on Sherlock or withdraw the knife blade. “I am going back to my car,” he said. “And this bastard is coming with me.”

John nodded and gave Sherlock a look.

Sherlock met his gaze, looking remarkably calm for a man hovering on the edge of disaster. Calm, as if that precipice were his natural milieu. Which was horrid and exhilarating at the same time.

Yellow Shirt slid one foot in the direction of a shiny black Saab parked at the kerb. Sherlock shot one more look at John and then stumbled dramatically. At that same moment, John threw the rolling pin, rather in the manner, he hoped, of a shot putter. Which, in truth, he had only ever seen on telly during the Olympics, but needs must.

Yellow Shirt tried to dodge the rolling pin and Sherlock took the opportunity to pull away from him. While the rolling pin did hit the target, it wasn’t with a solid blow to the head as John had hoped for, but, nevertheless, the impact was sufficient to knock the killer off-balance. Following that set-back, he decided to give up on his hostage [as well as his Saab] and just run for it. John made the easiest football tackle of his life.

They could all hear the whine of approaching sirens. The sound seemed to rip any last bit of hope from their prisoner and he exhaled, resting his face against the pavement.

Still keeping Yellow Shirt firmly on the pavement, with a knee firmly planted on his spine, John looked over at Sherlock and for some reason they both started to giggle.

“This,” John said, gasping for breath, “was the most ridiculous thing I have ever done.”

Sherlock picked up the rolling pin. “And you were going to make eclairs,” he said.

“That wasn’t just me,” John replied.

When a police detective [who seemed to know Sherlock rather well] turned up soon after, they were both still dissolved in laughter.

+

Exactly one year later, John awoke to find a fresh cup of tea sitting on his bedside table, along with a plate that was piled high with perfect-looking eclairs. He glanced up to find his smirking flatmate-friend-lover standing next to the bed. “Don’t tell me you made those,” he said.

“Oh, please, John,” Sherlock replied with a snort. “Anyone can make eclairs.”

John reached out a hand to pull him down onto the bed, where they drank tea, ate every one of the eclairs and generally made a mess of themselves and the unfortunate duvet with pate a choux, pudding and chocolate glace.

#

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Anyone Can Cook by Muriel Goaman


End file.
